


sold my heart to heal my soul (and all that I got in exchange was broken bones)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: when it feels like the world's gone mad (dark stories) [45]
Category: SKAM (Italy)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Character Study, EVEN IF ONLY LUCA AND MARTI SHOW UP IN THIS FIC, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Martino Rametta Deserves A Hug, Missing Scene, POV Martino Rametta, Season 2 Episode 5, Self-Hatred, THERE IS NO STOPPING MY LOVE FOR THE CONTRABBANDIERI, Unreliable Narrator, YOU ALL WILL HEAR ME WRITE FIC FOR THESE BOYS UNTIL THE END OF TIME, actually looking at this it feels more like, but only a little at the end - Freeform, only minor though, post THAT party fight, than a canon-divergent fic, the Contrabbandieri to the rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21915241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: He shoves Elia. Fights his friends. Lashes out at the only good things left in his life before turning and running.Because here's the thing- Marti kind of hates himself, in this moment. Because he pushed, and he pushed, and he pushed, and he can't get his lips to even form the word "gay" in correlation with him but he pushed three people who had done nothing but try to make him feel better after being rejected by the boy who Marti thought- and boy, did he think fucking wrong- was his. The boy who he thought wanted him.Marti is spiraling. He is screaming and sobbing and hitting trash cans and despite this- despite all of this- he can't get it all out. He can't. There's just no way to somehow get out everything that's been pounding away at his insides for years, that's been tearing away at Marti's lungs since age thirteen.He is breaking apart. He is splintering. He is paper-thin, shredded under the weight of the expectations of his friends and his own stupidity and his own anger.He is alone. No friends, no boy (was there ever any boy), no parents, just him, collapsing in this fucking alley.He's fucked up. He's really fucked up.(Post 2x05 character study.)
Relationships: Luca Colosio & Martino Rametta, Niccolò Fares/Martino Rametta
Series: when it feels like the world's gone mad (dark stories) [45]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1214802
Comments: 3
Kudos: 36





	sold my heart to heal my soul (and all that I got in exchange was broken bones)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Senses" by Birthh, aka the song that plays at the end of the episode as Marti leaves the fight with the boys to go pick a fight with some trash cans. It's the song I listened to in order to write this fic- lot different than the last songs I used to write Skam Italy fic, right?
> 
> Alright, so this whole scene gets me every time, probably more than other version of the fight in any of the remakes (and even the OG), because of how much they build up the boy squad in the scene leading up to the party. Those boys are doing their best to cheer up their friend. They notice that he's down- Gio most of all- and all of them are doing this whole thing to try and make Marti feel better. So Marti fighting back at the end, shouting at them, pushing them around- it feels like Marti's actually being an asshole, and it's more heartbreaking for the audience, because the boys WERE genuinely trying to cheer up a friend, not just drag him to another party. Yeah, there were some non-altruistic goals on their part, but at the end of the day, it just hurts for everyone a lot more because we're so much more on the boy squad's side this time as well as Marti's.
> 
> Also, the line "All the girls you drool over are in there hooking up with seniors" gets me so much, because you KNOW that it's Marti projecting, that he's thinking of Nico as he says it, that he JUST SAW the boy he liked hooking up with someone else.
> 
> Anyway, that's enough ranting. Onto the story!
> 
> (Real quick side note: All I Want, the song of which the lyrics are included in the fic below, is kind of the perfect song to describe how the Isaks feel post 2x05, after they've witnessed the kiss between their Evens and their Sonjas. "Our love was made for the movie screens" and all that, you know?)

_When you said your last goodbye_

_I died a little bit inside_

_I lay in tears in bed all night_

_Alone without you by my side_

_If you loved me_

_Why'd you leave me?_

_ **-Kodaline, All I Want** _

“You wanna get in?” Marti asks Gio outside of the Covitti’s party as he can feel his world shredding around him, his lungs turning into a vice around his heart.

“Si,” Gio says, all wide, kind eyes and a stupidly earnest expression.

“Go, then. All the girls you drool over are in there hooking up with seniors-”

Marti spits the words like the poison they are, flinging them like daggers so that way they can sink their blades into someone else, make someone else hurt the way that he is, right now, with the image of Nico kissing his girlfriend burned into mind like the afterimage of a nuclear bomb- seared into his mind eternally, forever, inescapable ruin.

The boy who he stupidly drooled over- the boy he liked, who he was stupid enough to think liked him back- is in that party, kissing a girl. Kissing Maddalena, probably. Some other senior, Marti doesn’t know, he’s now realizing that he _ never fucking knew _ enough about Nico, about his backstory, about his goddamn girlfriend (clearly not his ex, because he clearly never took a break) to know this basic piece of information- his girlfriend’s fucking age.

“-So if you wanna go in there and make fools of yourselves wearing these stupid ass blazers- he’s even wearing a fucking tie on his head- go ahead. Go! C’mon!”

This is self-sabotage, Marti knows. This is directed at the wrong person, because he doesn't mean to direct these words at Elia and Gio, doesn’t mean to lash out at them, but he has to get this festering poison inside of his lungs out and throw it at someone else because he’s been keeping it inside for so long and he’s hurting _ so much _and he can’t fucking get it to stop.

So when Elia makes the comment about his family, well-

He shoves Elia. Fights his friends. Lashes out at the only good things left in his life before turning and running.

Because here's the thing- Marti kind of hates himself, in this moment. Because he pushed, and he pushed, and he pushed, and he can't get his lips to even form the word "gay" in correlation with him but he pushed away three of the best people in his life, who had done nothing but try to make him feel better after being rejected by the boy who Marti thought- and boy, did he think fucking wrong- was _ his. _ The boy who he thought wanted him.

Marti is spiralling. He is screaming and sobbing and hitting trash cans and despite this- despite all of this- he _ can't get it all out._ He can't. There's just no way to somehow get out everything that's been pounding away at his insides for years, that's been tearing away at Marti's lungs since age thirteen, when he realized that he was staring more at Gio than at any girl he should have been looking at.

He is breaking apart. He is splintering. He is paper-thin, shredded under the weight of the expectations of his friends and his own stupidity and his own anger.

He is alone. No friends, no boy (was there ever any boy), no parents, just him, collapsing in this fucking alley.

Marti can't hear anything over the pounding in his ears as he sinks to the ground against the wall, hands to his face, trying to _ stop fucking sobbing._

He's fucked up. He's really fucked up.

Nico left him, after kissing Marti in that pool, in his bed, after crafting Marti those red strings and talking about the Last Man on Earth and telling Marti-

Well, telling Marti nothing. Not a goddamn thing.

Because here’s the thing- Nico didn't really promise him shit. 

Marti had believed- well, fuck, he’d believed in something impossible. Because of course Nico left, after Marti opened up about his shitty dad and his struggles with his mom’s depression and everything. Of course Nico went back to his girlfriend, who was better-suited for him than Marti was, who Nico smiled and kissed in _ public_, not in a pool or in his own house or in an empty restroom.

What boy wants a fucked up loser who can't even admit that he likes boys aloud, who kissed a girl to try and fit in with his friends, who hates his own heart and fought his friends and can’t handle his mom’s mental illness?

Of course Nico realized that Marti wasn’t worth the trouble. Of course he went back to his girlfriend.

Because what Filippo said earlier today, what Emma accused him of in that party, was right- Marti isn’t brave. Marti’s a coward. A closeted coward. 

And what boy fucking wants _ that_?

Then there are footsteps, and Marti tries (and struggles, and fails) to stop crying and stand up, to somehow appear like more than the abyss that has cracked open under his feet. He tries to appear more than the asshole who yelled at his friends for trying to help him, more than the gay boy who was tricked into thinking that he _ mattered _ to the boy he liked, that he was anything more than a fling that didn’t pay off.

“Marti?” comes a familiar voice, and Marti’s breath catches in his throat as he clears his throat, willing away tears that won’t disappear, trying to clear the poison in his lungs as he looks up to find, impossibly, for who knows what reason, Luca. Luca, who he was sure would be in the party right now, who he didn’t yell at or fight but still insulted in the process of his rant to Gio earlier. “You okay?”

Clearly, Marti is not, but he doesn’t think he has the energy left to snap at Luca, to even make a snarky comment, so all he does is look at Luca, feeling just a bit dead inside.

His silent staring is clearly putting Luca on edge, as after a few moments Luca swallows and asks, “Do you want me to get Gio?”

How is he doing this? How is Luca here, being kind to him, after everything Marti shouted? After everything he did? After everything he _is_?

“How can you ask that?” comes bursting out of Marti’s chest, unbidden, as he starts to get the strength back in his legs and starts to push himself back up the wall, to some sort of standing position.

“What do you mean?” Luca asks, brow furrowed in the dim light shining over this trash heap, light that illuminates his blond hair in a way that almost turns it into a halo around his head and illuminates an expression kinder than Marti deserves after he’s fucked everything up.

“After everything I did. Everything I said. How can you- how can you still care?”

“Of course I care,” Luca says, sounding almost confused by any suggestion to the contrary. “And so do Gio and Elia. You’re- you’re clearly hurting, Marti. Gio said so, after you just left, and earlier today- it’s clear that you were sad, then, too. That’s why we’re here- we just wanted to help you feel better. But it’s clear- at least, I think it is- that it didn’t work. That whatever’s going on with you- it's a lot deeper than we thought it was."

“Where are they, then?” Marti asks, and in any other circumstance the words would be bitten out, snapped in a tone that dares the world to argue with him, but they just sound kind of broken, now.

“They thought you might still be angry, so they stayed back when I said I wanted to go after you. Said that you might not want to talk to them. Elia said something about you still acting like an asshole, but he gets it because he knows you’re upset, and-”

“I was,” Marti says, “Or, I mean, I _ am_. An asshole, that is. Because I-” And despite this, despite everything, Marti still can’t get the words out. He can’t say that truth about his identity, about the reason he’s imploding, about why he shouted at Gio and fought Elia.

Marti can't. He can't get the words out. Not after everything. Not after Nico left him and he feels like he's drowning and he tore apart Gio and Eva because he couldn't handle his emotions then and how is he supposed to do it now, when it involves him being honest and open and somehow shattering everyone's expectations of him-

"Marti," he suddenly hears as someone touches his shoulder, and he looks up to find that he's zoned out, his breathing harsh again, and that Luca is right next to him, expression gone from trying to understand to outright concern. "You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to. Not right now. Not if you- if you react like that." 

Marti still doesn't know why or how Luca is so understanding, but he nods in thanks anyway, leading Luca to smile at him. "You good to talk to Gio and Elia?" Luca asks, and Marti stares at him, for a moment, trying to picture the conversation, trying to picture the apology without the ability to explain, without a way to get the words past his lips that will tell the boys why he's been an asshole.

He tries to picture it. Tries to picture the words escaping his lips.

_Me and Nico- that boy with the earbuds, from the day we watched the volleyball players- we had a thing. And it was beautiful, but it burned too bright and too fast and then it crashed._

_I'm gay. I like boys. I like- _liked_\- Nico. Until he left me. Until he broke my heart, because I was stupid enough to give it to him._

"One more moment," Marti says, looking at Luca and his halo of blond hair; looking at Marti's own hands, throbbing from hitting the trash cans; looking at the moon, shining down just like it did last week, when he and Nico were entering a pool and Marti felt like he was on top of the world, a boy's lips on his.

(Oh, how quickly things can change.)

Luca just stands there, waiting patiently, face expectant, until Marti takes a deep breath and steps forward. "Let's go talk to them," Marti says, and he doesn't know what exactly he's going to tell them but the words- they're there.

Maybe he'll be able to speak them, tonight. Maybe he won't be able to speak them until tomorrow.

But eventually, he knows- he'll tell them. Eventually, his heart will start to mend. Probably. He has to have hope that it will, that he can be braver, that he won't be this stupid, fucked-up loser for the rest of his life.

Luca smiles at him. "Let's go," he says, and he and Marti head away from these wrecked trash cans, away from this destruction that reflects the ruins of Marti's heart.

**Author's Note:**

> And then the post-its start the next day and so do the "Last Man On Earth" references and then Bracciano and everything ends up alright, in the end, guys, have a little faith, right?
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed! The writing style is a lot more like my writing style for other fandoms (haven't used a style quite like this for Skam Italy yet) and I hope it worked for this fic. Please leave a comment if you liked- comments are the lifeblood of a writer, after all!


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